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STILL IN ANTWERP 251
were seen there five days ago, have disappeared for ever from
the Grand’ Place. Now, only a long queue of civilians stands
outside the Townhall, desiring to obtain, from the German
military authorities, passports and permits for some purpose
or other.
As I sauntered through the old town, I looked at the people
returning from their flight—in most cases merely a trip to the
Dutch frontier—and who were now opening their doors and re-
arranging their shop windows. In a side street a group of
marines had assembled round a half-starved cat whom they
were treating to milk and meat ;
" the cat will be as fat as
a porpoise in a week," they assured me. Then my ears caught
the sound of cheerful strains of music floating through the
misty streets, and I followed the direction of the alluring
sound. It turned out to be the band of one of the marine
battalions playing in front of the Townhall—surrounded by
a large crowd. At four o’clock every afternoon a band played
here, at the Central Railway Station and outside Hotel Weber.
Order was maintained by Belgian police constables. I ad-
dressed one of them and he told me various things of interest.
He knew for certain, he said, that five British marines were
taken prisoners yesterday in the town. Then he suddenly
passed on to other topics. In the night of August 25th, a
Zeppelin had flown over Antwerp, and dropped some bombs,
one of which had hit three policemen ; two were killed, one
was still alive and likely to recover. The police force of Ant-
werp numbered 800 before the war. Of these, 260 had been
called out for active service, 140 had fled when the bombard-
ment commenced, the others had remained and were still
doing duty. On account of their small number, even the
higher police officers had to do street duty. He computed the
strength of the Anglo-Belgian army which had been in Ant-
werp at 120,000 men, and he expressed himself in very drastic
terms as to its mode of defending the town. He did not know
where the army had gone to ; at any rate it disappeared just
when it was most needed. According to his computation,
one-tenth, or at most one-eighth, of the population had
remained during the bombardment. They had taken refuge in
cellars, and stopped up the apertures with sand-bags. Of course,
men of his service were obliged to stay out-of-doors. Thus
he had seen a cyclist struck by a shell and literally vanish on the
spot. On returning home he found that his wife, like all others,
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